On Sex & Stories

I'm polishing the first half of my novel. The plan is to send it off to my agent and my freelance editor on Friday before we fly to Cali to meet our new niece and nephew (yay!) and I had this brief chat with my editor yesterday afternoon and asked her an important question, I think.

How much sex?

My book is about relationships and life, so, yes, there's sex. But the question is how to render it. Do I write the scenes out, thoughtfully and sparingly of course, or do I leave most of it up to the reader's imagination? My gut is to do a bit of both, to go there and also to hold back. These are, after all, the stories I like to read. I like to be shocked, to have occasion to blush as I'm flipping pages, but I also like to be afforded the freedom to imagine just what might be happening.

What do you think about all of this? Do you have a strong opinion either way? Are there books or movies or television shows where you think the amorous bits are handled (or not handled) particularly well? Or not particularly well? Do tell!